“Do you trust that one with your life, little shamaness?” Irial asked, tilting his head toward Nicholas, who lay shivering on the altar, streaked with gore, his ankles and wrists raw and bleeding from his struggles.
The ease with which Irial identified her, the casualness of his address, made Aisling’s heart race. But she didn’t hesitate in saying, “Yes. His sister asked for my help. I trust him.” She glanced at the bodies on the floor then back at Irial. “Will you free him?”
“I will free him.”
“Thank you.”
Irial’s eyes darkened, and for the first time they swept downward, over her nakedness. “I understand better your allure,” he said before turning his back and walking to the altar.
Unbidden, the spirit winds swept in, but rather than restore her to her physical body, they carried her back to the ghostlands, to another room and another circle, to a place that once made her think of ancient Greek temples but now made her think of desert lands and a time before humans existed.
Arched doorways formed the walls on all four sides. Gauzy, pastel-colored curtains held the gray of the ghostlands out. Sigils created with priceless gems sparkled in the stone floor. Some glowed so brightly they would imprint on her retinas if she looked at them too long.
Aisling sighed in relief. In the spiritlands all things came at a cost. There’d been no time to contemplate the price of saving Nicholas, no time even to ask what would be required of her. Now she knew she was to pay Aziel for Irial’s name.
It was a heavy price, but one she had always paid willingly. The other spirits who guided her took her blood or a promise of service. Aziel took a part of her soul, what the ancient Egyptians had once labeled
ka
, the life force.
Aziel slid from her shoulder and settled on one of the jeweled symbols as he’d done any number of times before, as he’d done in each of the forms he’d taken as her companion.
He recognized you,
she said, thinking of the instant when Irial saw Aziel, wanting answers, as she always had, but wanting them more desperately now.
Perhaps.
You’re demon.
She made it a statement. Hesitated slightly then added,
As is my father.
Aziel’s amusement reached her, a sharing of emotion rather than thought, the bond between them stronger in this place.
What’s in a name, when it’s given by another and not claimed by the one it’s given to?
The question made Aisling blush and look away. Memories of a similar question crowded in, where she stood naked in front of the bathroom mirror with Zurael.
Do you remember what I looked like beneath the moon and regret letting me cover you, pierce you? Does my form change the nature of who I am? Does it define me?
No.
Then look at me, watch while I take you.
Without conscious thought, Aisling’s fingers curled around the entwined lovers of Nicholette’s necklace, and in the cool of the spiritlands the jasper was warm against her palm. A fleeting, hazy image appeared, an impression of Nicholette writhing on silken cushions in this circle, the curtains in the archways billowing as a man lay on top of her, thrusting into her—and Aisling knew Aziel’s interest hadn’t been feigned.
She let go of the necklace, didn’t want him to feel the childish, selfish insecurity that attacked her and held the larger fear of losing him at bay. But in this place, it was impossible, the bond between them too strong, too deeply ingrained. He’d been with her from her earliest memory. He was father and brother, spirit guide and best friend.
It’s not time for me to leave you yet
, he said, and his love surrounded her like a blanket, warmed her so deeply that there was no room for fear or worry about the future.
She let her mind drift, only barely noticing the sigils, flaring and subsiding in random order, as if an unseen hand played notes she couldn’t hear. Tiredness came first, with the faint outline of her clothing as her life, her
ka,
drained away. Exhaustion came next and she wrapped her arms around bent knees, could almost feel the fabric of the pants she wore in the living world. Lethargy followed and she rolled to her side in a fetal ball, closed her eyes because she didn’t want to see how close to physical death Aziel would take her.
Twelve
ZURAEL rose onto an elbow and gently brushed the hair away from Aisling’s face. She slept deeply, with the insensibility of the dead. And though her bare skin was warm against his, he shivered as he remembered returning close to dawn to find her curled in a ball on the red dirt in the shaman’s workroom, unresponsive to his touch and voice, her skin chilled and pale.
“Aisling,” he whispered, leaning down to trail kisses over her soft skin, to touch his lips to hers and tempt fate by doing it. How had she come to matter so much to him? When had the thought of her death become unbearable?
He curled his arm around her waist and pulled her more tightly against him, pinned her unresisting thighs to the sheet. He was hard, as he always seemed to be when he was with her. But it wasn’t the ache in his cock that guided his actions or urged him to cover her completely. It was the desire to possess her, to protect her.
She stirred as if responding to his closeness, his need to know she was whole, undamaged, safely returned from the spiritlands. Some of the worry loosened in his chest, burst in a wave of heat that had him touching his mouth to hers again, almost daring her to wake, to defy the future by taking his breath and spirit as easily as she’d summoned him from his father’s kingdom.
Movement ended the moment. Zurael turned his head and saw the ferret.
Aziel was in the doorway, bold now where he hadn’t been willing to show himself earlier in the face of Zurael’s anger at finding Aisling still as death on the floor.
A knock on the door came and Aziel turned, retreated to the living room. Reluctantly Zurael left the soft heat of Aisling’s flesh, slid from the bed and pulled on a pair of pants. More of his tension left when her eyebrows drew together and her mouth formed a frown over his absence.
He forced himself from the room to answer the front door. It was Nicholette.
Her gaze went behind him, searching for Aisling, then down to the ferret, who wound himself around her ankles like a cat before disappearing back into the house. When Zurael didn’t call for Aisling, she said, “I brought fresh bread and vegetables from our garden. It’s not enough, not nearly enough for what Aisling did. But it’s all we can spare. We’re leaving Oakland.”
Nicholette’s knuckles were white where her hands gripped the coarse burlap. She offered the sack to him and he took it.
“Please tell her we’ll never willingly talk about what happened. Tell her no one knows Nicholas is safe. His client will never accept that her precious son brought about his own death. If she learns that Nicholas is alive, she’ll blame him and find a way to have him arrested.”
Fear settled like ice in Zurael’s chest. Dread tempted him to ask how Nicholas came to be alive and free while his client’s son was dead. Caution kept his lips sealed. If Aisling had summoned another Djinn . . .
Aziel returned, carrying Nicholette’s necklace in his mouth. Her worry faded. Laughter and warmth shone in her eyes, highlighting her exquisite beauty and delicate features. She was breath-taking, though Zurael didn’t desire her physically.
Nicholette knelt and took the necklace from Aziel. She stroked his head and back for long moments before slipping the chain over her neck and standing.
“I need to leave now.”
“I’ll pass on your messages.”
Nicholette spared one last look at Aziel, then turned and hurried away. Zurael watched her for a few minutes, felt the eyes of unseen neighbors noting his presence, but even that couldn’t pull him from the icy foreboding of his own thoughts.
He returned to the bedroom, intent on rousing Aisling, demanding answers. But the sight of her sprawled in the center of the bed, the covers kicked away to reveal splayed thighs and pink-capped breasts distracted him. Lust flared, as fast and dangerous as a flash fire.
Zurael crossed the room and stripped out of his pants without being aware of doing it. His cock was a hard ridge along his abdomen, his testicles a heavy, full weight.
He wouldn’t yield, he told himself as he knelt on the bed next to her. But then her eyelashes fluttered, parted, and he was captured in blue shaded to violet, in a whirlpool of desire he had no resistance to.
“Zurael,” she whispered, and he answered her call, responded to the subtle arch of her back by leaning over her.
With a moan, he latched on to a nipple, sucked and bit as she twisted and writhed, moved so his chest hovered above her face. She captured the loose strands of his hair and pulled him downward until she could press her mouth to his flesh.
Razor-sharp desire spiked through him when she bit down on his nipple. His hips jerked with each touch of her tongue, each suck, and he would have surrendered his seed if she hadn’t taken his cock in hand, cupped his testicles and prevented release with the tight band of her fingers.
“Aisling,” he panted, and did the unthinkable. He yielded his power to her. Submitted by repositioning them so he lay on his back and she knelt, her knees on the mattress near his head, her sinful mouth kissing downward toward his throbbing penis.
He palmed her breasts. Tortured her nipples and kissed the silky skin of her belly, bathed in the scent of her arousal when he was presented with her heated lower lips.
A shudder went through him as her mouth captured his cock head. He wouldn’t beg, he told himself,
she
would be the one to plead.
His hands abandoned her breasts in order to cup her buttocks. He pressed his lips to slick, swollen folds. Probed her wet core with his tongue.
She bucked, whimpered. Took his penis between her lips and sent raw pleasure through his shaft—and he knew the depth of the lie he’d told himself.
Her name became a plea in his thoughts as liquid hunger consumed him. His hips jerked, lifted off the mattress in urgent rhythm.
His cock fought to surge deeper, but her hands prevented it. Had she asked, he would have done anything she wanted if she’d just take him further into her mouth, if she’d just bring him to completion.
A soul-swallowing lust held him in its grip. He was consumed by a carnal claiming he would never have allowed himself with another Djinn.
Aisling’s fragile, delicate beauty was a trap he couldn’t escape. The more he thought to possess her, the more possessed he became.
His tongue stabbed through wet folds, licked over the tiny head of her clit. “Aisling,” he whispered and nearly cried when finally she gave him what he craved beyond anything else.
She took him deeper. Stroked him with her tongue. She sucked on him until his mind was white heat and screams of unbearable pleasure as orgasm claimed him.
He felt boneless beneath her. Echoes of his release trembled through him, but he had the presence of mind and discipline to return what she’d given him, to send her over the edge with his tongue.
THEY showered and dressed. Zurael waited until Aisling was in the kitchen, pulling loaves of bread and freshly harvested vegetables from the burlap sack he’d left on the counter, before he trapped her between his arms.
Somehow he resisted the urge to press against her, to get lost in the sultry heat and sweet allure of her. “Nicholette was here. She and her brother are leaving Oakland without telling anyone he’s alive. They want you to know they’ll never willingly reveal what you did.” His voice became barely more than a growl. “What name did you call last night, Aisling? Who did you summon?”
“Irial.”
Zurael went rigid with shock. Fear for her froze the air in his lungs. It made his heart stutter and miss a beat.
Aisling turned and placed her hands on his chest. Calm blue eyes met the molten, raging gold of his. “He would have killed me if he could. He intended to. But when he saw Aziel on my shoulder, his anger disappeared completely. He asked me if I trusted Nicholas with my life since he’d witnessed everything. When I said I did, Irial agreed to free Nicholas. What happened after that, I don’t know. I couldn’t stay any longer.”
Zurael pulled Aisling into his arms and rubbed his cheek against the silk of her hair. Hope rose where fear had been. If the House of the Raven stood with him about sparing Aisling’s life . . .
He shivered when she pressed kisses to his chest. His cock hardened, and he felt her smile against his skin, answered it with one of his own.
A knock on the door kept him from urging her to her knees or taking her against the counter. He stepped back, but followed her into the living room.
Raisa stood on the stoop. Bird-sharp eyes shone as they took in Zurael’s bare chest and Aisling’s heightened color. “I hope I’m not interrupting. I saw Javier this morning. He mentioned you’d stopped by the occult shop looking for him. I took the liberty of telling him about our visit the other day. I told him I’d suggested you go there with your questions. He’s willing to meet you for lunch at my tearoom. As I mentioned during our earlier visit, my shop has always been a safe place, a neutral zone for those touched by the supernatural. There’s no way to reach Javier now, but he said he’ll stop by in an hour, just in case you can make it.”
Aisling said, “I don’t know if I can.”
“I’m sure Javier will understand if you can’t on such short notice.” She glanced at Zurael, then back at Aisling. “Nicholette didn’t answer her door this morning. Did something happen—”
“There’s still hope,” Aisling interrupted. “Or at least there was . . .” Her voice trailed off, giving the impression of worry. “If you’ll excuse me, there are some things I need to do before I’ll know whether I can meet Javier for lunch.”
“Of course.”
“You handled that well,” Zurael said moments later, when they were in the kitchen again. “Curious she should arrive this morning with an invitation and a question. What happened last night?”